


an old beggar's prayer on the tip of my tongue

by dizzy



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:57:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5194718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No character death, but warning for sickness and hurt/comfort. And on that cheery note, happy birthday lovetheblazer! I’m so thrilled I got to celebrate with you this weekend. <3</p>
            </blockquote>





	an old beggar's prayer on the tip of my tongue

Dying hurts. 

People ask him all the time how he's doing, and Darren's answer is always the same - hurts like fuck. (Or hell, if he's around polite company.) 

He can laugh at his own discomfort. He can laugh, almost always, if there's someone to laugh with him. 

* 

When he first finds out, he goes to Chris. 

It doesn't matter that they're six months broken up and have barely exchanged two words in that span of time. Darren's always had a nomad's heart, easily attached to people but not places. 

He's spent the past six months running from something and he thought the exhaustion that he felt was just the pace of life catching up to him. But he was wrong, he was so wrong, and when he realizes this is something he can't outrun he just wants to go back to place he started from and see if there's anything left. 

* 

Chris takes him in. 

Maybe it's guilt, but Darren doesn't even care. He'll milk this fucking asshole sickness for whatever he can get out of it. Maybe guilt got his foot back in the door, but love is why Chris let him stay. 

They work that part out pretty fast, though. Apologies - sure, whatever. Darren doesn't need them, though. They both did what they thought was right for them at the time. They made the decisions they needed to make for the situation they were in. 

But the situation's changed, and so have they. 

*

Sickness is tedious. 

It's clinic lobbies and consultations and second opinions and bloodwork and tests and paperwork and insurance and waiting waiting waiting, so much waiting, every single stop along the way stretched out like taffy, seeming longer than physics should allow. 

Darren says he's bored with being sick. Chris buys him a 3DS and two dozen games and tells him stop whining. 

(He's not so smug a month later when Darren's kicking his ass at Mario Kart.) 

*

Some days he doesn't want to leave Chris's bed. It's nice and comfortable and it has his favorite person in it and there's always a cat or dog that wants to cuddle up. 

Some days he can't leave the bed, and those days Chris stays with him. It's the treatment, not the sickness, and it pisses Darren off - or it would, if he could remember how to be angry about anything. 

Chris tells him depression isn't a good look for him, and then hands him his guitar. 

*

The list of things Darren gives no more fucks about grows. 

He stops going to events. He's too tired and whatever people assume will be easier to handle than the tidal wave of pity to come when they find out the truth. 

He stops making an effort for people that don't matter. That one he should have done a long time ago, cancer or not. 

He stops valuing quantity over quality. Suddenly the numbers in his bank account matter less than the experiences he's committing to memory. 

He doesn't stop singing. 

*

Somewhere along the way, Darren draws himself a new path. 

Maybe Chris does, too, because Chris comes to him with the weary set of someone who has spent too many recent hours crying over something neither of them can control. He sits at the end of the bed and his voice breaks when he tells Darren that he'll go wherever Darren wants, when Darren's better. 

It's a throwback to their last fight; to Chris wanting roots and a home and Darren wanting freedom. 

Darren grabs Chris by the hand and pulls him down onto the bed, laying there until Chris's shoulders stop shaking. His arm is numb but Darren's used to his body doing all sorts of fucked up things lately, so he ignores it and kisses Chris and says that they'll figure out the future when they get there. 

*

Remission is a beautiful word. 

He walks out of the doctor's office alone. He always does these things alone. In the beginning people wanted to be with him, to support him. And he lets them because it felt like the thing to do, even though his stomach felt full of worms and people talking to him just intensified the discomfort. 

Somewhere along the way, maybe around the end of the second week of chemo, he found his voice. Marking days off the calendar brought with it more than just an acknowledgement of time. He found a sense of strength from within that he'd never had before. 

Remission. He says it over and over. He needs to call his mom. He needs to call Chris. He needs to tell the world he's not down for the count just yet. 

He means to go home when he starts his car, but the open road holds a limitless appeal so he just drives instead. He's got _time_.

*

Dying hurts. 

Good thing Darren doesn't plan on doing it any time soon.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr!](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/133042152800/an-old-beggars-prayer-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue)


End file.
